Midlife Crisis
by Mr. Bluu
Summary: Levi finds himself enamored with his best cadet, and finds a huge number of unhealthy ways to process it. Inspired by "Midlife Crisis" by Faith No More / Disturbed. M for possible lemon.


As she sails apathetic through the air, he sees nothing but an arching lightning bolt of black strength. He is captured, enslaved by the enrapturing silhouette who slashed away at the vortex of entropy in his soul. Twirling through shattered, overgrown buildings, between the legs of bloated revenants, carving and cleaving at space and time itself. Through the spyglass that he observes their recruits, his pupils dilate and his eyes widen. How can the other captains and officers around him not see her? Not see the pure angelic power she poured out into the universe?

The thought was preposterous. Every gaze should fall on her. Titan after Titan she plowed through, delivering swift yet indifferent oblivion on each one of the aberrations. The blood of the open-mouthed obscenities had no divergence from the cardinal scarf trailing behind her, like the trail of a rage-red comet. The astonishment and overpowering reverence bubbles in his chest, his heart beating a deep bass rhythm.

What terrible ecstasy was it burning in his veins that rose from the dead whenever he looked at her? It buried his self pity, annihilated his inhibitions, resurrected his murdered spirit from the void. What mighty power did she hold over him all of a sudden? It hadn't been this way at HQ. He'd seen her trail behind her would-be lover, him completely undiscerning of her obvious affections, and had seen nothing of this girl who wiped away galaxies with a swing of a blade. Suddenly that fact struck him like thunder, and he was indentured completely to her. Now he saw the perfection that flowed through every inch of bone, every drop of blood within her.

 _*You're perfect, yes, its true!*_

Hold on.

What in the hell was he talking about?

Levi sighed, letting out a rare chuckle as he tossed the half-finished bottle of whiskey off the roof, jumping off the roof after it and speeding towards the Titans with his ODM gear. He shouldn't let his thoughts wander like that. Drink telling him he was enamored with a subordinate was bound to end badly. One of the cables bit deep into the spine of the last Titan, a lowly five meter, and Levi slew the beast without a sweat. He saw her look of confusion, and returned it with his stone-carved face. Levi's feet found the roof once again, _clacking!_ against the weathered orange tiles. Best to beat his subconscious into submission, because he'd put a fucking bread knife in his throat if he had to give up drinking.

"Cadets, form up!" He called down into the row of houses. Before him, in quick succession, rose Jean Kirschtein, Annie Leonhardt, Reiner Braun, and the object of his suddenly-horrifically-poetic-(Affections?) : Mikasa Ackerman the Cadets assembled in line, each silent and resolute. Levi trailed down the line. "Kirschtein, 6. I saw you get caught a few times, you slip up again and you die. Bundle your limbs up, less for the bastards to grab. Leonhardt, no major complaints. 10. Braun, 8. You hit hard, but that won't matter if you're too goddamn slow to hit them. Speed up. I'm sure Ms. Leonhardt can help you with that during your training next week." Both groaned and Levi inwardly chuckled. "And now we have Ms. Ackerman . . ." The Lance Corporal's nerves still ached from the cauterizing fire he'd let her put there. And when he looked up at her, porcelain skin, small lips resting, eyes steely grey from the horrors from her past all framed by her rivers of black hair . . .

The more he realized there was something, buried deep behind those features, those horrors she held in her orbs, beneath it all, that he _wanted._

It surprised him, really, how long it took him to see how fucking hopeless it was. He was a war veteran in his twilight years, hardened to ice by the deaths of loves and friends. She was surrounded by friends, vigilant and warm to all, with her whole life ahead of her. _*But without me, you're only you . . .(You're only you!)*_

How pathetic.

He ran a frenzied hand through his black hair, aware abruptly of the silence permeating the rooftop.

 _*Your menstruating heart!*_

"Yours . . . still needs evaluation," he shakily slipped. Then all the men and women and Cadets were behind him, ODM gear roaring and carrying him onto his horse.

 _*It ain't bleedin' enough for two!*_

 **LATER THAT NIGHT, AT HQ . . .**

"Luck be a laaaadyyy, toniiiiight!" Levi bubbled to himself as he lay prostrate across his plush office chair. A music box lay on his desk, playing a straightforward tune of trumpets and drums. The lyrics he made up himself, which in his drunken state was a cake walk. The pain of the day had been shed of him, and all thoughts of it cast away as he sank into a veritable ocean of bliss. In his stupor, his squad was still alive, around him they all drank and laugh and sang with him; Mikasa was there too, in his lap with a smile dancing across her face, lovely white teeth exposed, and there were enough bottles of Reeves' Reviver to keep them going till the early hours of the morning. The Lance Corporal chuckled and hiccuped deeply, a bubble of pain coalescing in his chest. He pounded a few times against his taut pectorals, and downed another bottle. His liver was shit, why not heart too?

But it still lingered.

It still stalked at the edge of his mind, like a wolf circling a tree. No amount of drink could blunt the knife of finality it drove into his brain. No amount of fantasy or admiration would give pause to this terrifying reality.

 _She will never be yours._

 _You are broken._

Of course she wouldn't ever want to be his. It was such an obvious fact of his being, his brokenness. But none were intelligent enough to see it except her. Her gaze bored a hole right through his chest and strung his heart for the world to see. But none could. None could help omitting _her_ , and she would never understand. Levi wasn't even sure he wanted her. This tsunami that had crashed against his brain earlier today . . . it was all too foreign a feeling. Where on earth had that come from? It was unrecognized and unwelcome, but . . . . . . . unshakable. Even now, he felt the specter of that masterous flame, tugging at his nerves, breaking open tired and tender scabs that held his lust and desire at bay.

 _*Go on and wring my neck_  
 _Like when a rag gets wet_  
 _A little discipline_  
 _For my pet genius_  
 _My head is like a lettuce_  
 _Go on and dig your thumbs in_  
 _I cannot stop giving_  
 _I'm thirty-something!*_

His throat tore in rage as he tossed the bottle against the spotless wall. It splattered the costly wine against the stone bricks. This music box still ticked, blurring his vision in red with each note it played. Growling, he swept it and all his documents and contracts off of the desk, transfiguring them into a shower of paper onto the floor.

He grasped his head in his hands. A prominent vein in his forehead pulsed blood, hot and thin, under his palm. His breathing was ragged and tired, and his mouth gave him the impression of being suffocated with cotton.

 _Why would she not leave him be?!_

"Lance Corporal?" A voice on the other side of his office door spoke.

Fuck.

He stumbled over to the door, eyes heavy all of a sudden. Did it really have to be her? As his hand came to rest upon the brass handle, he shut his eyes tightly for a moment. The animal inside him gurgled in anticipation, its meal finally before it, jaws slavering for her black hair and ivory skin. But he fought the cruel directive down and bound it in chains. Locked in tight. An all too rare feeling of relief washed over him. Levi sucked in a cold, dusty breath of castle air and opened the door.

And the beast strained and foamed in its bonds as its supper revealed itself. The wooden door swung open and behind it stood Mikasa Ackerman, clad in her night clothes which consisted of a blue gown and her ever present scarf slung around her shoulders. Her eyes were tired, but withheld no inkling of the glittering force she transfixed him with. The way she looked at him, resolute, concise, calm. . . Levi shook his head as a nasty throb started up in his forehead. Clearing his throat, he stepped out into the hallway as his Cadet saluted.

"Um . . Ackerman, what brings you to my quarters at this hour?" He asked with mock annoyance, trying to distract from the drum beat blazing through a vein in his head. "Noise, sir. Crashing, woke me up and needed to seek if anything of importance had happened."

His eyebrow raised. "I take it this passed your standards?"

"Sir, yes sir. Would you . . " a flash of uncertainty danced in her eyes. "Appreciate any help, cleaning up your mess, that is?" The look of her eyes was less robotic now, less as though he were looking into the eyes of a dead woman. Levi winced slightly, another metronome of pain slugging into his brain. "Yeah . . . yes Ackerman. It would be appreciated."

And so they set to work : The Lance Corporal on the slicing broken glass on the floor, and his subordinate on the deluge of documents his rage had splattered all about the floor. Her back was turned to him, and Levi was forced to simply shut his eyes to avoid catching a glimpse of her, lest the beast return. As a result, the glass nicked and poked into his hands, summoning tiny droplets of blood. He must've sworn under his breath, for her heard Mikasa say from across the room "Sir?"

"Its . . . _fuck_ . . . alright, Ackerman."

And then he made the first step in his downward spiral. He turned around.

She was bent over, collecting the fallen work off of the floor. In doing so, her gown was stretched thin. _Awfully_ thin.

He could see straight through it. Every inch of her backside was visible to him.

The next few seconds were a blur.

Every bond that had held the malicious monster in his heart back shattered in the blink of an eye. In one instant he was on her, her smooth, pale back pressed tightly and painfully into the wall. One of his strong, gnarled hands went to her throat and the other tore open the front of her gown. Here he was, underneath a moon he couldn't see, silently howling his pure lust into the dank air of the castle as he dove in. Levi's lips smashed against hers as she struggled and fought. She was strong for a girl, and definitely for a girl her age. But Levi's stout body had been honed by dozens of barfights and turf wars in his youth, and battling Titans these days. He was a statue, a cold marble authoritarian whose grip was like death on Mikasa's hip. He pressed harder, as if he was trying to flatten her to the wall. His eyes must have been pure terror to her, no trace of humanity displayed as he defiled her. She spat and clawed and raged but his power was outmatching hers. She still continued, however, even as the last shreds of life in Levi's eyes died, and his hands took control of her now bare breasts.

It was now that those dead eyes searched the face he had just violated, the lips he had bruised and attacked with his teeth, up to the eyes.

Desperation. The hottest and purest spice in the mouth and all it told Levi was that Mikasa just _had to get away, had to find Eren and get away, get away!_

It gave him pause, one tatter of remorse draped across his grey irises that slacked his hands and unwound his grip.

Mikasa had only needed one advantage and now here it was.

As immobilized as she was her legs could still move, far more now that Levi was stunned. One of her legs went sailing upward between his, crushing into crotch and the wind was knocked out of the Lance Corporal. He doubled over, coughing and trying to suck in one more sliver of oxygen. Mikasa didn't let him. Her small and alabaster fist came fast and hard into his jaw. The uppercut took Levi off the floor and into the so famously cleaned desk, shattering the furniture in two.

He groaned, his upper lip bleeding profusely from where his bottom set of teeth had plunged into it. Levi's headache was now doubled probably a thousand fold. He spat a wad of blood from one of his broken teeth and slowly, methodically raised himself up on his feet again. The girl made for the Lance Corporal again, but this time Levi wasn't such easy prey. He caught Mikasa's fist as it came to him, barely even looking up.

"Ms. Ackerman," he spoke mutedly, looking her right into her blazing, angelically furious eyes. "You had better return to your quarters, while I still have control of myself. "

She suddenly remembered her gown was open for the world to see. Blushing and teary eyed, she looked at him with absolute, clean, burning rage. Mikasa's arm covered her exposed bosom and she gathered herself. Again she set upon her face the mask of the soldier, ready to kill and take orders. Though, suddenly she felt like Commander Erwin's order not to pound Levi's face in when he found her over the Lance Corporal's dying body wouldn't be heeded.

Mikasa left the room. Levi watched her go, then sat back down in the halves of his ruined desk and was soon asleep.

* _Sense of security, like pockets jingling . . ._ _*_

 _*Midlife crisis!*_


End file.
